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History
The Civil War The most destructive conflict in American history, the United States Civil War was started on April 12, 1861 when the southern states seceded in an effort to maintain their slave-based economy over fears of the newly elected President Abraham Lincoln moving to abolition. After a bloody 4 years of conflict with nearly a million Americans dead, the war ended on August 9, 1865 when Union General Ulysses S. Grant marched his army on Shreveport, Louisiana to find the Confederate government attempting to flee to Cuba. With Confederate General Robert E. Lee killed in action at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse several months prior, the Confederacy was officially at an end. Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, General Joseph E. Johnston, and all other generals and political officials of the short-lived Confederacy were found guilty of treason and hanged. An outraged actor, John Wilkes Booth, attempted to assassinate President Lincoln while he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre but was shot dead by Major Henry Rathbone when his Philadelphia Deringer misfired. In response to the attempted murder of the president and influence from radical Republicans who wished to see the South harshly punished for its treason, the former Confederate states were placed under martial law and occupied by federal troops where they remain to this day. The border between the Southern states and the rest of the Union is harshly controlled and patrolled, limiting free travel and trade. The vast majority of freed slaves were given free passage to leave for the North. The Guerrilla War An army of former Confederate loyalists, bolstered by citizens feeling oppressed by the harsh reprisals and martial law, has taken to the Southern countryside to build a new revolution. The Union constantly finds new rebel bases and hidden weapons plants, but is seemingly unable to stamp them all out. The leader of the Confederate resurgency is known only as the White Hood and has never been seen unmasked; it's rumored that his seeming appearances are decoys or pretenders. President Lincoln declined to run for a third term in 1868 and the presidency was won by war hero Ulysses S. Grant in a landslide. As of 1879 Grant is on a successful third term, but with rumblings of changing term limits to avoid a dictatorship that have so far been blocked by the Republican party. Grant has vowed that the martial law will not be lifted on the South until the insurgency is ended and the citizens' safety can be assured. The Free State of the West Due to the federal government's focus on the Southern insurgency, the western territories have been left mostly neglected and allowed to run themselves. The lands west of Kansas City have taken on the colloquial name "The Free State of the West." Due to the lack of government interference (especially with constant bribes and corruption), the western United States has developed a sense of independence and freedom. San Francisco, in particular, has become a vibrant international trading post. Men and women seeking their fortune or looking to escape their past have traveled from all over the globe, forming communities and even attempting to create their own independent states. The greatest migration of all is the Freedmen Migration, in which approximately 25% of the free black population of the United States has migrated west to escape discrimination for a more diverse community.